Update: Latin America

Mexican Student Group Tops State eBird List

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With the tropical afternoon light
shining through the fields and
trees near their homes, a group of children
admires a stately West Mexican
Chachalaca, a turkey-like bird of dry
thorn forests. They are part of an environmental
education project called Sal a
Pajarear in the Mexican state of Jalisco.
The group, which operates in coastal
villages, was founded a little over a year
and a half ago, and in that time some 115
students, aged 8 to 11, have learned about
the importance of a healthy ecosystem
by watching birds. They’ve also managed
to become the state’s leading eBird
checklist contributors.

Sal a Pajarear, which translates to “Go
Out Birding,” is led by Francisco Ramirez
from the nonprofit Club El Tamarindo.
The project began with the help of Cornell
Lab of Ornithology board member
Claudia Madrazo and is supported by the
Fundación de la Costa de Jalisco. It’s an
effort to get locals invested in the area’s
remarkable bird life.

Project coordinators visit villages to
choose instructors (typically teachers
interested in ecology) and train them to
identify birds. Once ready, those instructors
go to local schools to give an introductory
presentation to the pupils. They each
select a group of 10 interested students.

This group of students spends three
days together, playing games as well as
learning about birds, binoculars, and field
guides. In order to fit in with the children’s
daily lives, the project continues
as a series of monthly outings that last
from 90 minutes to 2 hours, and some
go birding more often than this. The instructor
later uploads the group’s sightings
to eBird.

The results entered so far are enough
to make any North American birder envious.
En route to becoming the top eBird
contributor in the state, Sal a Pajarear
has held workshops for some 900 children
and sighted more than 18,000 birds.
They’ve seen a total of 201 species and
logged 375 hours in the field. Among the
participants’ favorite birds are the chachalaca,
Citreoline Trogon, Lilac-crowned
Parrot, and Orange-breasted Bunting.

Ramirez explained how the project
has changed both the instructors’ and
the participants’ lives. The children no
longer hunt birds, he said, and have begun
sharing information from the project
with their peers and family. On outings,
they make a point of picking up trash, and
have also organized other environment-related
activities, such as releasing baby
sea turtles hatched from eggs collected by
Fundación de la Costa de Jalisco.

Some students are learning the scientific
nomenclature and are convinced
they will become biologists or ornithologists
someday. “We are contributing with
our grain of sand for the planet’s conservation,”
Ramirez said, “and these children
will spread the seeds to multiply
their effect.”